Hi all:
Court resumed today at 9:30 am. There were three observers for part of the morning; I stayed all day until court adjourned about 4:30 pm. The purpose of today’s hearing was to review thirty witness (or witness category) suggestions brought forward by public Counsel Yavar Hameed with the help of Joanne Doyon (I may not have the spelling correct). These witnesses, if approved by the court would be asked to testify regarding the topics of alleged ‘violations of solicitor-client privilege’ by CSIS/CBSA listening to phone conversations, ‘abuse of process’ and failure by various government officials and elected Ministers to do their ‘due diligence’. Public Counsel has called for these witnesses to be heard due to information revealed in the latest disclosures (I don’t know the extent of them). Some potential witnesses are CSIS/CBSA employees who have been heard before plus some new ones. Others are high level actors such as present and former Ministers of CIC and Public Safety such as Stockwell Day and Diane Finley as well as the present director of CSIS, Mr. McFadden and a former director, Jim Judd and high ranking bureaucrats in these ministries plus some RCMP members.
The pattern of response by Ministers’ Counsel Mr. Tyndale carried on through the day. He criticized the need for these witnesses, accusing P.C. of describing in their documents, the same terminology for each, which he called ‘boilerplate’. He also accused P.C. of engaging in a ‘fishing expedition’, of calling witnesses without stating what evidence was being looked for. Judge Blanchard also frequently asked P.C. exactly what evidence they were looking for. He also challenged M.C. for saying that information in an email was not relevant to P.C.’s case. M.C. pointed out that some of the high level witnesses would not likely attend if called, one reason, for a present minister, is parliamentary privilege while other high placed individuals would ‘not have time to attend’. M.C. accused P.C. of using a strategy of trying to make life so difficult for high level witnesses that the government would just give up on this case.
Perhaps the most interesting exchanges took place over what appears to have been revealed in the disclosures – that Ministers signed security certificates based on their seeing briefing notes shortly before they signed, while boxes of evidence delivered to them, that would have required their much longer attention, apparently were not looked at. Judge Blanchard kept challenging P.C. as to whether they were questioning the due diligence of government people at the highest level, which is not what the ‘reasonableness hearings’ are supposed to be about. He reminded P.C. that the hearing which will resume shortly is supposed to be about the reasonableness of the security certificate after it is signed – not about how it got signed, but it seems like P.C. wants to raise the first question as well as the latter. It remains to be seen whether Judge Blanchard will allow this.
The next hearing will resume on Wednesday, June 1 at 9:30 am at the same location – 180 Queen St. W., 6th floor (near Osgoode station on the University line)
The hearings will go on through Friday, June 4 and recommence on Monday, June 6.
Judge Blanchard indicated a rough schedule – begin at 9:30 am, lunch break about 12:30 pm and a morning and an afternoon break with court adjourning by 4:30 pm each day.
Please attend, even for an hour or two if you are able.
I will be away in Ottawa all the rest of this week so there will be no further reports from me until next week.
